Welcome to the world of confusing convictions.
A nostalgic to the core, stuck in history am trying hard to find my way in the jungle called civilization.

Friday, January 16, 2009

An angry sahensha...

Note - views expressed here are personal and in no way does the writer envisage this to be taken as a critically proclaimed debate. The writer also otherwise, expresses high respect for the people mentioned directly or indirectly in this post.

To equate popularity with quality always borders on the contempt about the gross negligence meted out to genius creativity. And with due respect to everybody, some recent remarks about the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” falls in that category.

It is of no wonder that Bollywood continues to be ignored at almost all major awards ceremony and yet they keep crying hoarse about such behavior without looking into the merit of such actions. It also smacks of childish nonsense to invoke national pride for such ignorance. To make such allegations without taking into account the reasons could only mislead the huge followers.

To be very honest, any true follower of world cinema would agree that around the globe, this medium speaks only one language – and that is about creative brilliance which is not only original in its presentation but also exceptional in all creative forms associated with the movie making. And in that sense, without falling prey to jingoistic nationalism, Bollywood movies pale out as a distant “also ran”. It is not that we do not have momentary brilliance, but we lack cinematic culture and nuances to understand such a language.

A great movie could always be popular, but the argument is not always true in other way.

Some unwanted comments about Ray’s movies being given better recognition only showcase complete ignorance. A master story writer himself, Ray not only engineered the art of movie making, but brought a complete package of complex emotional, musically superior and vividly refreshing collage. In fact, to counter the point about reality, movies which were made out of fantasies by him turned out to be even better in terms of cinematic jurisprudence. To claim an escapist colorful massala equivalent to a creatively made biriyani does not speak highly about the speaker’s intelligence.

A good movie (not a preconceived mass entertainer) would definitely contain an excellent script, wonderful soothing music (not song, unless it is absolutely necessary) and creative cinematography. Alas, barring a few ones, Bollywood is yet to understand such logic. It requires a literary mind and a knowledgeable head to understand the length and depth of any movie to be made.

A movie keeping everyone in mind could only be a commercial hit, but it would be wrong to expect favorable critic review for the same.

With all its positives and negatives, Bollywood has its own market and target segment and which unfortunately does not determine the prestigious awards. Till such times when they understand the language of the world cinema or money power forces nominations (which, to an extent, could might as well be true now), Bollywood has to be contend with off the track retrospectives or television coverage catering the NRI audiences.

But, to accuse others about their high handedness in not recognizing some pot boiling massala entertainer as a narration of cinematic language only opens up the Pandora’s box. It smacks a case of grapes being too sour.